- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 07 Apr '19

07 Apr '19

Good day! Two groups of visitors: an older couple who both worked at Bell Labs in the 1960s-1980s, and two college women who wanted to learn about programming. They all got full tours. Martin, his son, and yours truly all worked on our security cameras and related networking upgrades. All four cameras work now, and their live video is displayed on a monitor near our office desk. The monitor changes cameras every 30 seconds; Martin will try to get us a newer system showing all the cameras simultaneously in different windows. We will also install two more cameras at some point -- maybe as soon as two weeks from now. A longer-term project is to actually record video, not just have live streams. Sometime before VCF East I'm going to put up a prominent "You're on camera" sign. Martin also gave us a newer Ubiquiti wireless access point to replace our older Cisco unit. Where the Cisco one was a big hassle to install, even for experienced IT folks, the Ubiquiti device was super easy: did it myself in a few mouse clicks. It's on top of our network rack. Steve A. is coming by next Wednesday to relocate it to the ceiling where the Cisco one currently resides. I don't do ladders. :) With the new AP up-and-running, I disabled the wifi section of our Internet modem. That device now ONLY gives us Internet access and connects directly to our firewall. That's how it should be!

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Funny
by Chris Fala 07 Apr '19

07 Apr '19

I wonder if this is just their attempt at a clever pun, or if they are aware of and referring to our favorite podcast. https://shirt.woot.com/offers/trash-talk

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Museum Report 2019-04-06
by Jeffrey Brace 07 Apr '19

07 Apr '19

Tony did the first shift from 1 to 3. He had 4 highly interested visitors. I tool from 3 to 5 because I had leadership training at Taekwondo. I also had 2 groups of 2 highly interested people. A nice day. More people coming now that the weather is getting warmer. -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation

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Anyone have any info on the Sun 511 box?
by Ethan Dicks 07 Apr '19

07 Apr '19

Hi, All, I'm dusting off old Sun gear for VCF East and I ran across a shell of a Sun 511 box on my shelf. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any docs online about what would have been stuffed into it back in the day. Lots of Sun info still out there but the 511 box is not well represented. I suspect that's because I think it's a late Sun 2/early Sun 3 device. The best description is here: http://www.obsolyte.com/sunFAQ/X11_case/ Better photos at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SunShoebox_Front.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-2#/media/File:SunShoebox_Rear.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-3#/media/File:Sun3_60_Disk_Tape.jpg Mostly I'm curious about mounting plates/brackets, etc. I don't have the original PSU so if I use this box, I'll have to find something modern anyway. I also have some more modern (late Sun 3/early Sun 4) tape/disk shoeboxes. I haven't found any pictures online but they are tall enough to hold a full-heigh 5.25" disk over a 5.25" half-height tape drive on a half-height bracket with the PSU to the rear. Those are ready to stuff with disks so I'll probably start there. If only I had more than one DD50-P Sun SCSI cable... Alas, the "joy" of vintage machines, when it's hard to find parts that fit. -ethan

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The Grey Wall
by Jameel Akari 06 Apr '19

06 Apr '19

https://hartford.craigslist.org/zip/d/colchester-open-vms-manuals/685800286… If there is SERIOUS interest I can arrange a rescue mission. Chances are it's all on Bitsavers or archive.org but there's something to be said for a legit Grey Wall O' VMS. -- Jameel Akari

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Repair Workshop Wrap-up 3/30 & 3/31
by Herb Johnson 06 Apr '19

06 Apr '19

... and it's a two-fer of appreciation, with Bill Dromgoole's report on how the Univac repairs "get done". Some of the failures you describe - gradual loss of function across cards - suggests to me general problems like power-supply voltages. YOu found a suspect supply, I see. There's some really cheap little DC digital voltmeter boards from China for a few dollars. Putting a bunch of those on your DC lines may allow you to monitor them as you do repairs, look for sagging DC. Your "real" voltmeter can confirm the voltage; these widgets aren't that accurate but don't have to be. YOu might also 'scope out the DC, look for noise and glitches. As you know you need a lot of bandwidth to see DC spikes and dips which can trigger logic incorrectly. Also, chemical changes occur in board contacts as current flows. Corrosion over decades may create a bit of chemistry. Then when current is applied, chemistry (corrosion) may increase resistance between boards and their edge-sockets. Removal/insertion will fix that, for awhile. I've had good results with DeOxIt chemicals - even with those IC's with "black leads". A swipe of the DeOxIt brush across the board edge may work. I often follow that with some scrubbing with a white papertowel, to remove the oxide while maintaining that chemical coating. You can see dark-stuff come off. If there are pin contacts, a soft used toothbrush is a good scrubber. YOu don't want to "scrape", that removes gold and nickel! But you know these things. Point being: never underestimate the problems with "contacts". Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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Repair Workshop Wrap-up 3/30 & 3/31
by Herb Johnson 06 Apr '19

06 Apr '19

David, thank you for your repair work and reportage on the VCFed straight-8. Beyond the value of your efforts, reporting on details of failure, diagnostics and repair provides essential information for other's restoration of PDP-8's, and in repair techniques in general for transistor/diode logic of the 1960's. Thanks for showing us how it's done. Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Supercomputers, revisited
by Matt Patoray 05 Apr '19

05 Apr '19

Evan, How about a complete "Never Obsolete" E-Machines Celeron for that old VAX :) I'll get you the address, just don't send it Estes freight :) On Mon, Apr 1, 2019 at 2:41 PM Sentrytv via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > NICE ONE! > > Sent from: > My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device. > > > On Apr 1, 2019, at 2:07 PM, Ian Primus via vcf-midatlantic < > vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > > I'll make you a deal - I'll trade you a *working* Packard Bell Pentium > > 1 system, with the matching monitor, keyboard and mouse for it. I know > > that's the machine you really wanted all along. > > > > -Ian > > > > On Mon, Apr 1, 2019 at 11:25 AM Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic > > <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > >> > >> I'm starting to have buyer's remorse about the VAX 9000. Maybe we should > >> offer it as the mother of all surplus items at VCF East. Thoughts? > > -- Matt Patoray Owner, MSP Productions KD8AMG

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Supercomputers, revisited
by Evan Koblentz 05 Apr '19

05 Apr '19

I'm starting to have buyer's remorse about the VAX 9000. Maybe we should offer it as the mother of all surplus items at VCF East. Thoughts?

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Slightly OT - Favorite computer movie
by Ken 05 Apr '19

05 Apr '19

At 4/1/2019 12:07 AM, Jeffrey Golas via vcf-midatlantic wrote: >Whats your favorite "computer" movie? Can be current or ancient, modern or mainframe. A one liner about why you chose it would be cool too. Electric Dreams (1984). Here, the 80's computer store scene to drool over: https://youtu.be/rcLcxAwdjmo?t=4m23s - Ken

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